I am fortunate to have several Civil War veterans in my lineage, including my great-great-grandfathers William Sisson of Dover, Ohio, who fought in the 51st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and John Fauley of Fultonham, Ohio, who fought in the 5th U.S. Regulars. My great-uncles, the Chambers boys, fought in the 7th West Virginia on East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg and participated in the famed charge on the Sunken Road at Antietam.

Another great-uncle, Aaron Barnhill, was in the 141st Ohio, a National Guard regiment that served for 100 days in the summer of 1864 when the U.S. War Department enrolled tens of thousands of men for temporary duty for an all-out push to win the war. These "Hundred Days Men" in the 141st served on garrison duty at Charleston, West Virginia, allowing the release of veteran troops to man the front lines.

Posted in Civil War people Confederates Yankees

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Author Scott Mingus signs copies of his latest book at a store in Gettysburg

The August meeting of the York CWRT will feature Scott Mingus as the guest speaker, telling true tales and Human Interest Stories from the Gettysburg Campaign - many of which are taken from the manuscript for Volume 3 of this series, which is being compiled currently.

The meeting will be in the auditorium of the York County Heritage Trust at 250 East Market Street in York, Pennsylvania at 7 p.m. on Wednesday evening, August 20. There will be a PowerPoint slide show in conjunction with the talk.

Posted in Civilians Confederates Yankees York CWRT

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Tucked in a pleasant little valley not far from Spring Grove, this house was the home in 1863 of the Rev. Samuel L. Roth, a prominent area minister whose church was not far from his abode.

Background post: Confederate camp site - Jacob S. Altland House.

As an attorney, Civil War general, railroad executive, coal mine owner, U.S. Senator, and Governor of Georgia (as well as an early organizer of the KKK in Georgia by some accounts), John Brown Gordon met thousands of people during his busy lifetime. The vast majority were forgettable - common folks who elicited no special mention or recognition, consigned to be just another hand shaken by a veteran politician, or another nameless private saluting his commander.

However, a handful of York Countians received special recognition from Gordon in the years after the war during his popular speaking tours and his oft-quoted and somewhat controversial memoirs. And then there were his memorable encounters with Samuel Roth, a Jackson Township preacher whose persistence and never-give-up attitude stayed long in the memory of the Confederate general.

Posted in Civilians Confederates Gettysburg Campaign Spring Grove

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An engraving of Richard S. Ewell before his hairline significantly receded.

By the early summer of 1863, the name Richard Stoddard Ewell was well known within North America. The balding and somewhat eccentric Ewell had received considerable press as a brigadier general for his service during the Peninsular Campaign, and had survived a bad wound at the Battle of Groveton that cost him a leg. Promoted to command of a corps in the Army of Northern Virginia in May 1863, his men had won a smashing and decisive victory only a few weeks later at the Second Battle of Winchester. By late June, Ewell was approaching Harrisburg with two-thirds of his force, while a division under Jubal Early threatened York.

York was a place quite familiar to "Old Baldy," for he had visited the town before the war, and an older brother, Benjamin, had moved to York in the late 1830s to accept a position as assistant engineer of the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad. The former West Point professor had subsequently married a York woman.

Posted in Confederates York

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Rebels wearily slog through the rain during their retreat following the Battle of Gettysburg.

York Countians could breathe a sigh of relief after the Rebels departed. While there had indeed been considerable damage to the railroads and telegraph lines, as well as thousands of horses and mules seized, the damage was rather light compared with Franklin and Adams counties, and part of Cumberland. A reporter from the Lancaster Daily Herald trailed the two armies after they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, and he left a graphic account of the destruction he witnessed in the southern part of Franklin County. He wrote from Greencastle on July 8, 1863,...

Posted in Confederates Gettysburg Campaign

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Cover art from a 1991 book, The Story of the Northern Central Railway, by Robert L. Gunnarsson, Greenberg Publications.

All over York County, from the outskirts of Abbottstown to the west across the turnpike to Wrightsville and from Hanover to the southwest up to Dillsburg (and dozens of other towns and hundreds of farms), residents took stock of their losses. For some, the damage was relatively light - as low as a single horse. For others, their livelihoods had been destroyed (for example, a large milling operation in Wrightsville that had burned down, displacing the workers). In the next few days, I will outline some of the damage in York County (and perhaps beyond) caused by the Confederates.

I thank York County railroad buff, author, and historian Ivan E. Frantz, Jr. (and a colleague of mine at work) for sharing the following very interesting information he has gleaned from the files of the Northern Central Railway, one of the hardest hit companies.

Posted in Civilians Confederates Gettysburg Campaign Hanover Hanover Junction Other places Railroads York

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Jeb Stuart's three brigades of veteran Confederate cavalry rose in fields surrounding Dover and leisurely ate their breakfasts. Foraging patrols scoured neighboring farms for several miles looking for horses, mules, forage, horsehoes, and other supplies of military interest. They paid for them with worthless CSA currency or bank drafts to be paid by the Confederacy after the war ended. Scores of Union prisoners captured in Maryland or at the Battle of Hanover are paroled, released, and sent walking back down today's Route 74 to York. By early afternoon, Stuart's men are back in the saddle, as multiple columns wind their way through northwestern York County through Wellsville, Rossville, and Dillsburg, where the brigade of wealthy South Carolina planter and politician Wade Hampton III will camp for the night on the Mumper fruit farm.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the county...

Posted in Civilians Confederates Dillsburg Dover Gettysburg Campaign Hanover Hanover Junction Jefferson Wrightsville York

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James E. B. Brown, CSA Major General, led three brigades of veteran cavalry through southwestern York County after a half-day battle at Hanover.

At dawn, Confederate troops stir in their various camps, enjoy a final breakfast in York County, and prepare to resume their marching. Young Isaac Avery led his brigade out of downtown York, as the Tar Heels gustily sang "We'll Plant Our Colors on a Northern Hill," a popular ditty of the day. They picked up the Louisiana Tigers and Smith's Virginia brigade, and, trailing French's cavalry, marched toward Davidsburg.

In the meantime...

Posted in Confederates Dover Gettysburg Campaign Hanover Jefferson York

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Representative Civil War troops on the march, in this case, New York volunteers. Courtesy of Corbis.com.

Failing to find a way across the Susquehanna River with the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge now a smoldering wreckage, Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon retraces his steps and marches back to York. Cavalry under Elijah V. White burn a few more railroad bridges and terrorize farmers in the Hellam region, stealing or buying (with worthless CSA money) as many horses as they can find. Gordon's infantry march westward through York in the late afternoon and camp out near the Carlisle Road (today's Route 74).

Posted in Confederates Gettysburg Campaign Railroads York

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One of John Gordon's Georgians left a brief anecdote from his passage through York. This has not appeared in print since the 19th Century, I believe, when it was in a newspaper. Here is Private G. F. Agee's account...

Posted in Confederates Gettysburg Campaign Wrightsville York

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